http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=553115


in reply to Re: Is it real? (mu)
in thread Is it real?

I'd expect a programmer to understand how it is interpreted as roughly equivalent to "Which is (the most) real?" — just think of "it" as a variable! Sure, it doesn't start with a dollar sign, but not all variables are in Perl.

it = "Bigfoot";
print "Is it real?";

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output:
Is Bigfoot real?

print substr("Just another Perl hacker", 0, -2);
 - apotheon
CopyWrite Chad Perrin

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Re^3: Is it real? (mu)
by tye (Sage) on Jun 01, 2006 at 18:37 UTC

    That would explain why voting for Bigfoot would be voting for "Is Bigfoot real?", but does not explain why such a vote would be interpretted as voting for "Bigfoot is real". If people appeared to be interpretting the poll as "I most like to question the reality of _", then I might buy your argument. As is, it looks like "logic as a second language". ;)

    - tye        

[reply]

      Ah, but: keep in mind that in Perl (as well as some other languages) having any positive value at all causes a variable to evaluate as "true" when tested for "truth". Thus, a vote for "Is Bigfoot real?" assigns it a value that evaluates as "true", aka "yes".

      Or something.

      DWIM, darn you! DWIM!

      print substr("Just another Perl hacker", 0, -2);
      		 - apotheon
      CopyWrite Chad Perrin

[reply]

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